Trail Management

Trail management encompasses our efforts to acquire land needed to safeguard the A.T. footpath and viewpoints, working with volunteer maintaining clubs and agency partners to maintain the Trail and its structures, and responding to proposed developments of many kinds that could harm the Trail's setting and values.

ATC, through its land trust, looks at all the features important to the hiking experience and seeks to work with private partners and local governments to protect those features by purchase, easement or otherwise. Learn more about ATC’s Land Trust.

Trail-stewardship refers to the “on the ground” work performed by volunteers in the mountain woods and across the rural valleys. ATC coordinates this work and training for volunteers, helps set policy parameters, and supplies tools and other resources. “Stewardship” means keeping the footpath clear of natural overgrowth and blow downs from storms; building or repairing shelters and small footbridges; caring for privies at overnight sites; finding and then monitoring the health of rare, threatened, and endangered species that live within the boundaries of the lands that protect the Trail; and marking and safeguarding those boundaries against incompatible uses of the land. It also means deploying ridgerunners along high-use sections of the Trail, to help hikers and other visitors as necessary. Learn more about volunteering. 

Threats to the otherwise protected corridor can come, for example, from poorly planned development, communications and broadcast towers, highways, utilities' lines, or housing and recreational developments. Staff members, agency partners, and volunteers all have active roles in both land acquisition and minimizing the adverse effects of development. Get involved to help protect the Trail.

Trail management links:
› Cooperative Management Partners
› Trail Clubs
› Trail Policies
› ATC programs 
› Volunteer tools 
› Biennial Meetings
› ATC Offices